With 8 players 140 can feel pretty cramped but 280 is still very spaced out. Could we get an in between size please?
Seconded as well. The 280 map would make additional players possible, but also a different playing mode - asymmetrical starting positions. There could be an "established" (evil) empire with a couple of colonies in the middle of the map, the rest being start-ups with regular starting positions ...
Hi Promethean, welcome to the forums! Thanks for your suggestion for another galaxy size, between Huge and Gigantic. It's a nice suggestion albeit non-trivial, but I can certainly add it to the (very) big list of items to consider in the future. The community feedback list is quite big at the moment, so there's no guarantee it will be implemented. We'll see. In the meantime, since you say 140 systems can feel a big cramped with 8 players for you, perhaps you can reduce the number of players and/or increase the distance between star systems. With a 1.5x up to 2x distance between systems, one can get quite a spaced out star map.
You kind of can simulate this already with the options available to you to a good extent. You could set one of the more aggressive races (e.g. Draguul or the Sulak) to be 'All Powerful', with good production and research bonuses, for example, which simulates it being more advanced than the other players (more population, infrastructure and technologies at the start). You could even create a custom race for this 'evil' race and perhaps give them the 'Colonizers' special ability so they can start with 2 colony ships instead of 1. You could then set the other AIs to a lower difficulty level than this 'evil' more advanced one.
My wording is probably a bit off. Spacing the planets out more wouldn't change the cramped feeling as its more a result of number of planets settled before territory conflict occurs. It happens right away on the 140 but on 280 you can often settle 10+ planets without running up against someone else's territory. Spacing the planets would just make the travel times longer. An important factor for sure but not the one I mean. Yes, I know I can reduce the number of players. I did just that in the game I started after finishing the 280 I was playing that inspired me to make this thread.
I like the addition to 280 systems alot. I would even prefer a bigger galaxy with 560 systems or more. Distant worlds has 2000 systems and stellaris 1000. So it seems that the 4x trend goes to bigger is better I will try the 280 asap. I have a question: does the 280 system variant have an adpted (more expensive) tech cost? Or do we run out of techs in mid of game?
At this time, no. However you can manually adjust the tech research rate (for all players) and slow it down. While perhaps not an ideal solution, it would balance the game play on the largest map.
